By
Carlos Santoscoy
Published:
August 09, 2012

Organizations run by the Rev. Bill
Owens and Bishop Harry Jackson have received thousands of dollars in
donations from gay marriage foe the National Organization for
Marriage's (NOM) education fund.

Owens heads the nascent Coalition of
African-American Pastors (CAAP), which attracted major headlines in
July for criticizing President Barack Obama's endorsement of gay
marriage.

Similarly, Jackson, head of Hope
Christian Church in Maryland, has strongly opposed efforts to
legalize such unions in Washington D.C. and Maryland.

In a blog post, Equality Matters'
Carlos Maza noted that Owens and his coalition of African-American
pastors, Jackson included, are “key players in the National
Organization for Marriage's (NOM) race-baiting strategy” and called
CAAP “a NOM front group.”

“CAAP is little more than a front
group for NOM, which has an interest in driving the media narrative
that being African-American is somehow incompatible with supporting
marriage equality,” Maza
wrote.

NOM's race strategy to defeat gay
marriage was revealed earlier this year when gay rights advocate the
Human Rights Campaign (HRC) posted four of NOM's internal strategic
memos from 2009. The memos caused an uproar for declaring that the
“strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays
and blacks – two key democratic constituencies.”

NOM
documents show that Owens' Education for All received $35,733 and
Jackson's High Impact Leadership Coalition received $20,000 from
NOM's educational fund.

Education for All is headed by Mr.
Owens' wife Dr. Deborah Owens but Mr. Owens is listed as the group's
contact. A press release for the group states that it is an
outgrowth of Mr. Owens' Give Me A Chance Ministry.

A
Mother Jones Jackson profile added that Jackson's High
Impact Leadership Coalition spent $40,700 trying to defeat marriage
equality in DC and describes itself as a nonprofit on its website but
is not listed in current IRS or charity databases.